The Book Thread

[KorvinStarmast]

Just finished Nostromo by Joseph Conrad.

Spoiler: the literati consider it a superb 20th century novel

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(Apparently, in a list compiled in 1998 of 20th century lit, it came in at 47. (Ulysses by James Joyce was in the top 3, which for my money was far too charitable, so take its ranking with a grain of salt).

Where to start.
a. It's written in a style that fits its time, where description was important (both physical description and the description of what the characters were feeling or thinking). But it is also written for its time frame, which was the New World before The Great War, and the story tells about things that mostly happened in (a fictional version of) the 19th century in the fictional land of Costaguana somewhere on the Pacific coast.
b. Some meta themes are very much on display, with a core plot element being how Europeans are attracted to treasures in the New World, even in the 19th century, and the stark difference between the Europeans, even second and third generation Costaguanans whose ancestors came from Europe, and the indigenous population. I'll not go further due to forum rules.
c. On display are a variety of characters and character types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.
d. Deception, both of others and of self, crops up regularly.
e. The raw cruelty, and entropy, of the cycles of revolution that both changed, and did damage to, South and Central America during the 19th century is unapologetically represented.
f. There are some good plot twists.
g. There is not a happy ending.

A good read, but I can see the wisdom in its initial release as a serial.
Each chapter takes a bit of digesting as the story builds, block by block, to a sequence of climaxes that lead to the eventual, and somewhat unexpected, conclusion.

As a life long student of history, I particularly liked that one of the important characters is an expatriate Italian who was one of Garibaldi's One Thousand. (A veteran of Spedizione dei Mille). His occasional mini-rants about the betrayal of their revolution - by Cavour and Mazzini - is quite a contrast to the modern Italian hagiography of the three (Garibaldi, Cavour, and Mazzini) who each led the effort to unify Italy in their own, unique ways.
What it took me about half of the book to realize was that these early meditations by the old man about the people's revolution betrayed were a foreshadowing of various betrayals that crop up during the book. By the time it was over and I looked back on how Conrad had pieced it all together, I find that sub thread's weave into the fabric of the story to be masterful.